


i’m a princess cut from marble, smoother than a stone (the scars that mark my body are silver & gold)

by possibilist



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, haha - Freeform, hahaha, remember when i said i wasn't going to write them until after the finale, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 00:39:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3467942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilist/pseuds/possibilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or: ten times clarke learns something about lexa, and ten times they keep their promises.</p><p>Lexa is beautiful, and you want her, a hungry, primal, soft part of you wants her. There’s something about your matching pain, the mirror of blood on your hands, the sound of your nightmares, that makes you ache to touch her, want to wake her and kiss her and you wonder if want is the same as grief—if a profound sadness is the same as desire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i’m a princess cut from marble, smoother than a stone (the scars that mark my body are silver & gold)

** i’m a princess cut from marble, smoother than a stone (the scars that mark my body are silver & gold) **

.  
 _i dream all year but they’re not the sweet kind / & the shivers roll down my shoulder blades in double time / i got my fingers laced together & i made a little prison / & i’m locking up everyone who ever laid a finger on me  
_—lorde, ‘yellow flicker beat’

//

1

Lexa has nightmares.

You take separate shifts while you spend the night in the forest after the gorilla, and you think maybe it’s kind of a waste of time for you to be awake, because you can tell she’s not sleeping very well, tossing and turning. She rolls onto her arm every hour or so, grumbles or gasps and shifts again.

You don’t wonder what she’s haunted by: you’ve seen her eyes; you’ve heard her stories. You’ve looked at her; you’ve heard her—sometimes that haunts you more than Finn, more than all of the people—your people—you’ve seen die, more than all of the people you’ve killed. Lexa is beautiful, and you want her, a hungry, primal, soft part of you wants her. There’s something about your matching pain, the mirror of blood on your hands, the sound of your nightmares, that makes you ache to touch her, want to wake her and kiss her and you wonder if want is the same as grief—if a profound sadness is the same as desire.

Lexa never mumbles in English when she half-wakes; it’s her native language instead. You hear Kostia’s name sometimes, breathy and hollow, and if you could take the sound away, you would. You wonder if you could swallow it down your throat, if she could bite away Finn’s name from your lips. You wonder what healing is, because you can fix broken bones and bullet wounds and burns and you understand the physical aspects of wounds better than maybe anyone of your people on the ground other than your mother.

You knew how to kill Finn gently. You knew Lexa let you, that she probably knew, that it was a gift to you, an offering. You know Lexa would’ve traded anything for the same fate—to kill Kostia without pain, without terror, without torture and the horrors of loving someone saddled with so much power they never asked for.

You understand the hunch of Lexa’s shoulders because yours are riddled with the same bearings; but what you aren’t quite sure of is why you want to comfort her after she wakes with tears on her cheeks, and how, right now, she would never let you.

In sleep she’s young and painfully human, and after a few hours she wakes and stares at you. You don’t ask if she wants to talk about her nightmares; she’s Lexa, she doesn’t, so you just nod.

The she says, softly, “You can sleep if you want, Clarke.”

Your eyes are burning from a lot of things, so you just nod. “Okay.”

“I will keep you safe,” she says.

It sounds like a promise, and you don’t doubt she means it as one.

//

2

Lexa is profoundly gentle.

When she kisses you, her lips are soft and she tastes, surprisingly, like berries. She kisses you slow and deep and like she’s terrified and hesitant and she doesn’t know if you’ll kiss back. Like she’s asking permission.

You’re overwhelmed in many ways—you are hurting and you are lonely and she is sad and brave and beautiful. She trusts you and you don’t think she trusts anyone else in the whole world, and here she is, kissing you slowly and with care you’ve never felt before.

She is very Real, her shaky breath into your mouth and her nose grazing against yours.

It hurts; everything hurts, and you are maybe about to die. But you want to believe life is more than just surviving, or that it can be, that—out of anyone—the two of you deserve that because you are children with the weight of entire civilizations on your backs.

But you know that right now you can’t have anything but survival yet. It got Finn killed—the dark side of longing, the desperation, and you want to keep kissing her; you want to get lost in something other than  _I have killed so many people—_ but even in battle you must remember mercy, so now is not the time. There are still too many cracks inside of you, and you don’t know if either of you could stand to lose someone else.

She tilts her head and you back away, and she looks hurt and scared—like she’s done something wrong, like her mouth and hands really are weakness.

“I’m sorry,” you say, and she doesn’t move. “I’m just—I’m not ready. To be with anyone.”

There’s a tiny hitch in her breath and you want to hug her, because she is small and young and lovely.

“Not yet,” you say, and a little tiny smile lights up her face.

She’s about to say something but then there’s a shout.

There’s a war to be won, and she says, “Whenever you are ready. There will be time.”

It’s a hollow promise, maybe, because she’s commander and you’re the leader of your people, but you have so little control over that.

You choose to believe her anyway.

//

3

Lexa is willing to die.

You are too, you suppose, in an abstract sort of way, but there’s nothing quite as strong of a warrior about you. At your core, you are an artist, a healer, and you will fight more than anything to keep those things about you. You were raised, constantly and consistently, with all of your privilege, to live.

But Lexa was raised to die.

Before you walk into battle, you remember her speech about being chosen as commander, about her spirit, reincarnated again and again. You don’t believe in a god, or in something holy that transcends a single life; you wish you could, because maybe you would be less scared, maybe the heavy pit at the bottom of your stomach from the lives you have taken and will, unavoidably, take would be less acidic.

Lexa holds her head high as you near Mount Weather, her jaw strong and calm, her steps sure.

The forest is quiet and no one is talking, and as you trudge through it, heart pounding, adrenaline starting to surge through your body, you think about her kiss, how if you come out of this battle, you might want to do that again.

It’s young—the youngest thing you’ve thought in what feels like a very, very long time.

As you near the mountain, Lexa reaches over and takes your hand, laces your fingers together. You look down at them and then up at her, but she doesn’t turn your way, spares you no second glance. Her palms are rough and calloused—she’s a warrior, after all—but so are yours, and that tugs at something in you, because despite all of her roughness she is young and she is tender and she holds your hand like she’s scared too.

There is so much life left in the both of you.

At the base of the mountain, before the doors, before she turns to make another short and inspiring speech in two languages to prepare everyone else for the kind of offering she herself is willing to make, she squeezes your hand and says, very quietly, “I will see you after this, Clarke.”

You smile a little, because she’s sometimes absurdly dramatic and you know if you asked what she meant she could give you a formal and long-winded explanation of her spirit, of how her commander-in-the-next-life would meet you again one day. It’s sweet because she knows what you believe, so in some ways, she’s reassuring you that you yourself will not die.

It strikes you in that moment that you are not willing to die for everyone, but you are ready to die for her.

This is love and this is weakness, and it could get you killed, but you rub your thumb over the top of her hand, the little web between her thumb and forefinger, and say, “I’ll see you soon.”

You mean it as a promise, and she nods like she takes it as one.

//

4

Lexa is  _terrifying_.

It makes you smile for a moment in a breath of respite when you spot her in the heat of a fight. She’s small but she’s fast and strong and clinical. She’s been training to be commander since she was seven, although you still don’t really understand how they find someone who supposedly has the commander spirit. Lexa is soft-spoken and quiet when she’s Just Lexa, which you get to see more than anyone else in the world. Sometimes you’re struck with a sadness because she is like you, because she has a birthright and she was born into a world as a miracle and a trophy and an infinite amount of expectations.

But she meets them, or exceeds them—or she has so far, at least. The way she fights is without any pretense; she’s elegant and exact and you’re terrified she’ll die like this: exquisite and small, a hero’s death.

But, for now, she drives a sword right through a man’s chest, then slices another’s leg open and blood gets all over her. It’s not hers, but you’ve discovered that there are many different kinds of bleeding.

She scares you because you are alike, and she turns to you with a small smile as a circle of men lay at her feet.

She nods and continues down the corridor, and you follow in her wake, bodies lining the way—she is not weak and this is war; she has promised time and again, and she is not here to lose.

//

5

Lexa won.

You know you fought too; you organized your people, rallied them, had them join forces. Bellamy is the one who disabled the fog, and Raven is the one who figured out how. You killed people. Your friends all killed people.

But there is something about war that feels like Lexa’s, like she understands the victory, pyrrhic as it may be, better than anyone.

After the battle is over, there’s a few moments of stillness that shock you and comfort you at once, because you are very alive. You have a broken arm and one of your eyes is swelling shut, but you are alive.

You can’t find Lexa anywhere, though, and a thrill of panic shoots up your spine, because you are young and you want to be able to want her.

You walk around and check on your friends in the meantime, as the dust settles and blood drips from wounds that you should be helping to bandage; there are so many dead on both sides, you don’t know if it would help anything.

Bellamy and Octavia are embracing in a corner; your mother is directing volunteers around to help the injured; Jasper and Monty. You catch Lincoln radioing Raven. They are alive.  _They are alive_.

You eventually find Indra; you have no idea how much time has passed because you are full of adrenaline and shock and there is bile and sweet victory lining your throat, and she looks tired. You don’t have to even ask before she exhaustedly says, “Heda is down the hall.”

You don’t know if that means she’s alive or dead, but at least you know where to look. You reach a room and turn into it and Lexa is on a table, one of the Grounder healers bandaging a large gash across her thigh. There are some other healers there, but Lexa is speaking to them in quick, clipped Trigedasleng, and they nod and salute, then turn and shuffle past you out of the door.

You can’t help but smile when she sees you, and you’re cradling your arm to your chest and you don’t think she can walk at the moment, but she’s alive—she’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive—and she’s ordering people around and clenching her jaw and glaring at the healer as he cleans her wound.

She’s alive and she’s Lexa and she’s  _here_.

“Clarke,” she says, “I am glad to see you still in this life,” and you can’t help the laugh that fights its way out of your mouth.

You walk toward her. “I’m glad your spirit didn’t go anywhere too, Commander.”

There’s a hint of a smile on her face at that, her big, earnest, haunted eyes meeting yours as you walk closer to the table she’s propped up on.

“We will have to take care of the wounded and organize our people,” she says and then points to the healer, “so after she is done, it would be beneficial if she set your arm.”

You nod. “Yeah, of course.”

You kind of stand there, because there is so much to do but for right now it’s quiet. Some of her warpaint has smudged off, and then you notice there are tracks down her cheeks.

“Lexa, you’re crying,” you say softly, and she doesn’t really respond, just continues to hold your gaze.

“I am mourning my dead,” she whispers in acknowledgement, then winces as the healer starts to wrap a bandage tightly around her leg. “Although death is not the end, there were many losses.”

You take her hand.

She lets you.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to mourn the dead.”

She closes her eyes for a moment as the healer finishes and then tugs slightly for you to sit on the table with her. You hop up and the healer rummages around in her bag for a splint before standing in front of you and taking your arm gently.

The healer gives no warning and tugs your bones back into place, and it  _hurts_ , and you feel tears on your own cheeks.

“The living have been fed, Clarke,” she says, then wipes one of your cheeks gently with a dirty, bloodied, soft hand. “But a good leader must still feel pain.  _I_  am still able to feel pain.”

You just look at her, all of these contradictions and brave, cracked bits.

“Well I don’t know about you, but my arm fucking hurts like a bitch,” you say, and her eyes crinkle as she smiles the biggest smile you’ve ever seen on her.

She runs a hand down your cheek and then your neck, rests it on your collarbone. She rubs her thumb over the little notch by your shoulder and then says, “Shall we go take care of our people?”

You nod as the healer finishes and steps back to clean up her things, and you hop off the table. You help Lexa—even though she’s taller than you, she’s light, and you’ve held her weight on your shoulders before. She limps but her pace is quick enough. You swallow hard when you see people carrying out bodies in the hall, but Lexa silently squeezes your shoulder and then says, “There will be many better days than this, Clarke.”

This is true, you know—she will be in them; you will be in them together. “I’m looking forward to them,” you say.

She smiles before addressing the living.

//

6

Lexa is surprisingly embarrassed.

You get back to Tondc after a routine security sweep a few days after the battle, and someone tells you that Lexa has asked to see you. It’s more formal than you’re used to; you’ve taken to spending most of your time in her tent anyway, and when you’re there for the night you end up in bed next to her, on your back, and you fall asleep silently, fingers brushing.

When you walk into her quarters, she’s leaning against the table, and you’re pretty sure she’s been waiting for you, because she even looks a little nervous.

“Is everything okay?” you ask. “We didn’t find anything out of the ordinary—did another group?”

She shakes her head and takes an uneven step toward you; neither of your injuries have completely healed from the battle. “Clarke, everything is okay.”

“Okay,” you say. “Then, what’s going on?”

She takes a deep breath and then gestures to the corner of her tent. Your chest aches when you see an easel and a few canvases and some paints set up, a few brushes and a palate on a nearby stool.

“The spoils of war,” she says with a little momentary smirk. “You do not indulge yourself very often, and I am sorry if you don’t want these, but I thought maybe you would want to—” her brows knit together and you wonder if she occasionally has to translate words into English—“make art?”

“Lexa,” you breathe, then walk over to them.

“You are an artist,” she says quietly, and it’s almost like a question and almost like something reverent.

“Yeah,” you say, running your fingers over the fine tip of one of the brushes, looking at the colors of the paint.

“So,” she says, and you turn around. She’s closer than you anticipated, and you almost run into her. She takes a quick breath in and continues, “So—these are all right?”

You smile because she’s so formal and so genuine and almost painfully worried she’s done something wrong, and no one else in the entire world knows this Lexa.  _Your_ Lexa.

“These are perfect,” you say, and her body slumps in relief, her eyes softening. “Thank you.”

She nods and limps over to a table.

“You may paint now if you like. We can save a debriefing for later.”

You grin and mix a few paints on the palate. It’s a little clumsy, because your left arm is in a cast, but you manage just fine.

You don’t get the color of her eyes just right—it’s hard to find the exact shade of something like the precious, lovely earth, all hazel and grey, bright and deep—but you get close. You feel heat rush into your cheeks when you make the broad stroke of her angular, lovely face, because you’re pretty sure she’s watching you, and you’re painting her.

When you finish—it’s rough, and you’ve not painted in a while, so your strokes aren’t what they used to be, but her mouth is perfect—you turn around. She’s looking at you like she might never get another chance, and it takes your breath away.

“I will wait for you,” she says.

“Not long,” you say, walk over to her, kiss her rough palm. “You won’t have to wait long.”

//

7

Lexa smells lovely.

It’s not entirely unexpected, now that you think about it, because you’ve been close to her so, so many times, but it’s late at night and you couldn’t sleep, and she’d wandered after you a few minutes of letting you be by yourself.

It’s getting a little warmer, but you still have a blanket draped over your shoulders, and you sit on a little log at the edge of the lake. The moon is huge and bright tonight, so you brought your sketchbook and a piece of charcoal; sometimes nightmares make you want to create, to mark them down and away, but sometimes your hands are heavy with blood and you cannot make a thing.

Tonight you’re still unsure, at least until Lexa sits down next to you. She’d taken a bath just before you’d gone to bed, but when a little breeze catches and blows her hair slightly toward you—she’s sitting close enough to press up against you—you sigh a little, because she smells like flowers and soap, so soft and feminine.

Which she  _is_ , which no one but you knows.

She doesn’t say anything, only very carefully puts her hand on your knee.

You wonder if you both will ever be done mourning your dead; Kostia and Finn were first loves, and those don’t fade away into oblivion. They died for you.

But Lexa has lived for you, in some ways, you’re sure. She has opened herself up like the flowers she unexpectedly smells of, trusting you with her gaze and her body and her very life.

She is weak; she has fallen in love with you—she will never have to say it, because she’s here now, because some nights you wake up holding her and she never moves out of your arms. She cares and she trusts and she waits and she gives.

It’s not hard to kiss her; it’s easy and soft and sad and aching, just like the first time you’ve kissed. It’s slow and without any sort of urgency, because you’re ready and there is no war and there are no more bodies to burn.

She always looks younger without her makeup, but when she backs up very close to you and searches your eyes for something, for some sort of permission, you are sure she’s the youngest you’ve ever seen her.

“I am not used to feeling scared,” she whispers.

You smile a little and rub along her cheek. “Commander Lexa, scared?”

She sighs and closes her eyes. “I do not want to lose you, Clarke.”

“Lexa.”

“I cannot—I cannot lose someone else.”

You lean into kiss her again, gently, and she doesn’t pull away. “I’m right here, Lexa,” you say.

She nods against your mouth and brings her hand to the back of your head and presses tighter.

“I’m right here.”

//

8

Lexa sometimes makes you really, really angry.

Mostly it’s because she’s  _dramatic_ and sacrificial and steeped in tradition that sometimes isn’t the gentlest thing.

When you get back from two days of tending to things and organizing at Camp Jaha, Lexa isn’t in her tent, so you just sit back in a chair and start sketching her from memory. It’s a holy act for you, almost, because to be able to draw the perfect contours of her face means that your fingers know them.

You’d kissed her—really kissed her—for a week before you’d left, but you’d made sure to come back as soon as possible. It might not be the best decision to station yourself with her permanently at Tondc, but for now that’s what you’re doing; Bellamy and Raven are entirely competent and respected, and they have no problems leading well at Camp Jaha. Besides, Lexa has plenty of duties as a commander, so it makes sense strategically to start to rebuild a world together—and you really do want to do it with her; you want to build a life with her.

But then she comes hobbling and wincing into her tent. Her eyes are bloodshot and she’s short of breath and she’s obviously been crying.

You shoot up from your chair.

“Clarke,” she says, and even your name sounds pained and breathy.

“What happened?” you ask, walking over to her quickly.

She puts up a hand when you try to touch her.

“I thought,” she says, then slowly walks toward her bed, “I thought you were staying at Camp Jaha for the week.”

Your brows knit together when she kind of flops onto her stomach on the bed with a sigh. “Well, they’re doing well so I came back here early.”

“Oh,” she says.

You sit down next to her and gently bring your hand to rest on her back, and she jerks away from you with a hiss.

“Lexa,” you say, “you’re hurt.”

“I am fine,” she says.

You poke at her back and one of her hands tugs the fur on her bed in a clenched fist. Your chest twists at the sight. “Obviously you’re not fine,” you say.

She stays silent.

“Lexa,” you repeat. “Let me help you.” Your throat closes up a little, because you care about her and she’s  _hurt_. Your voice cracks a little when you say, “ _Please_.”

“Fine,” she says, but she doesn’t move. “You may lift my shirt.”

She pushes herself up on her hands with a grunt but otherwise doesn’t move, and you tug gently at the bottom hem of her thin, black shirt. You fight back a gasp when you see her upper back, and you clench your jaw as your stomach turns, but you don’t say anything until you’ve gotten the shirt over the top of her head.

You’ve never seen her without clothes before, because things between the two of you have seemed young and fragile and you were waiting for your chest to feel less terrified before you slept with her—you have time, you have time,  _you have time_ , you tell yourself like a prayer—and there’s a split second when you glance over her, all sinewy muscle and dark, pretty skin, a green tattoo stretching from below her waistband up over a hip and along her ribs. She’s beautiful.

But then she lies back down softly, cradling her head in her arms crossed in front of her, face turned away from you.

“Lexa,” you whisper as you brush aside her braids and take in the  _mess_ of the stretch of her shoulder blades. You want to cry because they look burnt and bleeding and raw and you need to get salve and  _god_ —it’s going to hurt. “What happened?”

She waits a while before saying, quietly, “There are two hundred and fifty.”

“What?”

“Scars,” she says. “The burns will become scars. I requested them.”

“Holy shit,” you say. It comes out of your mouth harshly.

Lexa sighs. “When I did not evacuate the village, two hundred and fifty of my people died.”

You fist your hands because they’re shaking—she’s telling the truth; you have killed more people than Lexa, than anyone you know; she hurt herself and you have never wanted the world to be gentle to anyone more than you have wanted it to be gentle to her.

“You know of our tradition—we receive a scar for every kill.”

You swallow. “Yes.”

“They are a great honor, supposedly. We get them on our chests. I have mine,” she says, and she shivers when you trace the lower half of her spine. Her skin is hot. “Thirty-seven. I have honorably killed thirty-seven people.”

“You didn't kill the people in the village, Lexa,” you say. “A missile killed those people. Not you.”  _Not us_.

“I know,” she says, “but I am their commander, and I cannot let that happen again.”

“Lexa,” you say, and you stand because you’re angry, “we won the war. There wasn’t any other way. You  _said_ so yourself.”

You’re a little frantic because she  _did_ say that, that’s what she told you, and you had to believe her, you still have to believe you, because you are haunted enough as is.

“I have to go get salve,” you say, and she doesn’t try to stop you.

You gather some supplies from the nearby healers’ tent, and then you walk as quickly as you can back to Lexa’s, sit down silently again on the edge of the bed and say, “Hey, this is going to hurt.”

She nods minutely, and she tenses and clenches her jaw and fists her hands tightly when you touch the burns with salve, but she doesn’t cry and she doesn’t scream.

You don’t talk while you make sure to cover the wounds with disinfectant and then gauze, but eventually you wipe your hands off on a towel and sit back, sift your fingers through her hair.

“It wasn’t your fault,” you say.

“Clarke,” she says, and she sounds so weary and slightly slurred; you think she probably has a fever. “These are not about faults. They are a reminder. They will heal, and I will go on. We will all go on and we will build a place where no more impossible choices need to be made because we will not forget the ones we did.”

Her voice is small and weak compared to her usual strength that accompanies her speeches of grandeur and motivation and dreams, but this is maybe the only one you believe.

//

9

Lexa has a delightful laugh.

She’s back on her feet two days later, although you make sure to watch her temperature and make sure the skin on her back doesn’t get dry. No one has asked where she’s been because you’d made sure to delegate her tasks to Indra and Octavia, who are more than capable.

You walk with her to a small stream with a little, pretty waterfall, and she still leans on your a little for support, but her breathing is back to normal. She sits down on a rock and dips her feet in the stream, and you follow, take her hand.

In another life you could be eighteen together—really eighteen. But you aren’t; you’ve lived through enough terror for centuries.

Still—“You make me feel young,” she says.

You smile, bend over and kiss her shoulder over her loose tunic.

“I was never allowed,” she says, “to feel young. Even with Kostia, whom I loved, I never allowed myself this—there were wars and threats and it was not a luxury I could allow myself.”

You nod. “I understand.”

“I know,” she says. Then, after a few quiet minutes, “This is why I allow it with you.”

You grin, because a lot of horrible things have brought you here, a lot of loss, but flowers are blooming all around you and there are butterflies and birds chirping and you are struck with the wonder of the world.

“When I was on the arc,” you say, “in my cell, I drew what I imagined the ground looked like. Everywhere I could, because I figured—if I could keep imagining something better, maybe I would be okay when they let me out.”

She echoes your words from earlier. “I understand.”

“I never imagined you, though.”

She turns to you with a bright smile and she’s so beautiful it takes your breath away. “Am I better or worse than your picturings of the ground?”

You tilt your head and pretend to seriously consider it. “When you’re not being a dramatic shit,” you say, and she rolls her eyes, “much better.”

She bites her lip and then leans forward to kiss you, and you shut your eyes tight and try to remember this moment.

Eventually, you both have to breathe, and she rests her forehead against yours. She squints a little and then makes a little face, and you bend down and blow a raspberry on her neck, and the prettiest laugh comes out of her mouth.

It makes you want to cry, almost, because you have no idea how long it’s been since she last laughed. She even seems a little surprised, but you love to laugh, so you join in and blow another raspberry, bigger and more dramatic this time, and she tickles your armpit, and you laugh into each other’s mouths.

She laughs for stretches of minutes with you at nothing in particular—but maybe it’s at being alive and together and here and  _Real_.

Eventually, you stand and help her up. “We’ve gotta do that again sometime,” you say.

She nods earnestly. “Of course we will.”

//

10

Lexa is beautiful.

You’d known it since the minute you saw her, but not like this, not with you guiding her fingers down your body and not with all of her skin barred and not with her heady breath on your neck.

She is  _beautiful_ , and she kisses your pulse point and then your lips, then looks at your eyes.

“Clarke,” she says, “is this okay?”

You smile a little and say, “Yes,” and she kisses you hard and her fingers slip inside of you.

It feels soft and new and  _good_ , because she is good—she is better than you had first known. You’ve never had sex with a girl before, and she’s lovelier than you’d been able to imagine, so vastly different from Finn’s harsh, desperate pounding. You and Lexa are building a future, not fighting through a present, and so: Lexa is gentle, even as she curls her fingers and presses her thumb against your clit. All of her is soft, even her scars and battle-ready muscles, the little notches in her bones from where they’d broken and healed over the years. Her torso is covered in tattoos that wind around, and there are thirty-seven scars stretching across her chest.

In time, you will kiss them all; you will kiss all of her. In time you will learn that she arches into you when you bite gently into the space of strong muscle between her neck and shoulder, that her favorite thing is when you suck on her clit slowly and trace over her ribs with your nails.

In time—years later, when you have grown to build something great, when you are older and the most feared and respected leaders in all of the history you know, because you bring compassion to Lexa’s sense of justice and because she teaches you the essence of sacrifice—you will have memorized every scar and dip and precious curve of her body.

But for now, she says, “Come for me,” and it’s a promise, and you do, you do.

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out at possibilistfanfiction.tumblr.com if you'd like.


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